Speechless but Happy!!!

Eventhough the bosses are really busy with their personal stuff this week, today they dropped by the office after 9.30a.m. As they went into their room (they shared the same room), they closed the door behind them. Usually they would just leave the door open unless they need to discuss something private and confidential without the hearing of the staff.

After thirty seconds the bosses summoned me into their room. Usually in this kind of circumstance, I being a pessimistic person would usually think of the worst scenario, like for instance what have I done wrong now or who has done something wrong and I will get the scolding for it?

But then the bosses told me they wanted to give out bonus today and this bonus is on top of the one we would be receiving at the end of next month. Today’s bonus is for A/Y 2008. I was speechless but happy at the same time.

My colleagues and I do not know what had transpired during the weekend to make the bosses decided to do something so wonderful for us. Either they overheard some of the complaints or they read this blog (hi boss if you are reading this :)). Anyway it does not matter if we never find out because it is not important.

But as human beings, we are usually not satisfied with what is given to us. One of my colleagues is confused and does not understand why the bosses gave out bonus for A/Y 2008 today and then at the end of May only they would give out the accrued bonus for A/Y 2007. I told her she does not need to understand anything but to receive the bonus with a grateful heart. Afterall, I am the one who has to prepare all the bonuses and I am certainly not confused at all. In fact I am extremely happy and thankful for the extra few thousand ringgit in my bank account right now. Yippee!

Thank you boss.

Rooster Crowed at Midnight

At midnight last night as I was doing my small business in the toilet, I heard a rooster crowed a couple of times. The rooster must have mistaken the time of the day or it could be blind.

The sound reminded me of disciple Peter’s thrice denial of Jesus as mentioned in all the Gospels.

I was asking myself if I was under the same circumstance as Peter was going through, would I have denied Jesus? Sometimes we do not how we are going to respond to something unless we are going through it ourself. We may judge Peter and say that we will never do what he did.

I was also asking myself if someone was to point a gun at me and ask whether I am a
Christian, would I have just blatantly answered no?

These are points to ponder upon.

Malaysia is a Muslim country but Christians here do not experience much persecution as compare to a lot of Christians in other countries. For this I am thankful to God for allowing me to be born here. Nevertheless I also pray that God would continue to give strength and courage to Christians worldwide who are experiencing persecution. May they continue to remain steadfast in their faith in spite of the persecution they are going through.

Today’s Happenings

Today at Canaanland Celebration we had a guest speaker from the Gideons International. His name is James Redas and he hails from Kuching, Sarawak (our neighbouring state). It was indeed refreshing to hear him shared so many testimonies of how the Word of God have touched lives through this ministry all throughout the world.

I also met Mr. Johnny Liew from The Design Centre. He is an Interior Designer and he introduced some of the projects to my company. About five years ago, I think it was my sis-in-law who told me who he is when we saw him having lunch at a restaurant we were also patronising but I did not go up to him to introduce myself. Today I introduced myself and he was happy to have finally met me since we have spoken through the phone for almost a decade and have never met. After coming back to Malaysia for so long, he still have British accent.

After church I did not join church friends for lunch because mum needed to do the grocery shopping since we have not done it for a month. I came home for lunch and had two pieces of bread with Yeo’s Vindaloo Chicken, which I had for breakfast as well. For those who cannot take spicy food, I do not recommend you to take the Vindaloo Chicken. The normal curry chicken is still a better choice.

Today there were lots of people at Servay Hypermarket, Likas. I saw Andrew Chan (who also attends Canaanland Celebration like I do) buying packets of coffee which he’s going to bring with him to his company in Indonesia. We also saw Carol Yap, one of the church members from Abundant Life Celebration. She said I have lost a lot of weight. Long time before I know Carol, I already knew her husband Nicholas Pang and her parents-in-law in Sandakan. Nicholas was my senior in school and her parents-in-law were among the ones who gave me rides to church.

Mum and I bought a trolley full and when we were queuing up to pay at the counter, I saw the lady in front of us paying via credit card. Half way through as the cashier was scanning the things we wanted to buy, I got the shock of my life when I saw the sign ‘Cash Only’ appeared in front of me. The credit card facility had suddenly gone offline.

Since I already used cash to give to mum her monthly allowance, to pay the tailor yesterday and gave my tithe this morning, I did not have more than RM200 with me. Mum’s RM50 saved our embarrassment. Otherwise we would have to ask the cashier to take back some of the things we wanted to buy. This was my first encounter and so I better be prepared next time to make sure I still have enough cash as backup for payment. Anyhow, the cashier did remind me there is an ATM outside the hypermarket to save my day or face.

Tonight mum, Chloe and I went out with my brother James’s family and his parents-in-law for dinner at Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant. Mum brought along some of the fishes she bought from Sandakan to the restaurant to ask the cook to steam for us. The restaurant charged RM15 for the service. I thought that was kinda expensive.

My brother ordered slices of beef stir fried with ginger and shallots, ‘ko lo’ chicken, wet buttered prawns and stir fried lettuce. All the dishes tasted nice this time. But the serving of the rice was so small. Most of them ordered extra serving of rice but I did not do that because I had to finish eating the steamed fishes. I think I ate almost half of the dish.

My brother treated us and the bill came to RM117.


Slices of beef stir fried with ginger and shallots


‘Ko lo’ chicken


Wet buttered prawns


Steamed fishes


The amount of 'leftovers' on my plate

Apology that the photos did not turn out good this time round. I must be too hungry since I only had four pieces of bread the whole day and as a result my hands must have shaken while taking them. Plus it was kinda hard to take when everyone was so hungry and just wanted to dive into the food.

Office Tracing Cabinet and Calcium Tablets for Life

The drawings done by the draftsmen/ladies at work are placed into a tracing cabinet upon completion of a project.


Tracing Cabinet


Tracing Cabinet with Tracing Papers Inside


Tracing Cabinet with Tracing Papers Inside

When the tracing cabinet is full, the weight can become extremely heavy.

Exactly two years ago when I was looking for a set of tracing papers urgently without anyone like my assistant or the office boy to help me, I forgot that the tracing cabinet was very heavy. I opened it quickly and suddenly I hurt my back.

I ignored the back pain and did not go to see the pysiotherapist. I only took painkillers to numb the pain and was trying to cut down from taking too many tablets to only a tablet a day.

A few days after hurting my back, my company went to Pulau Tiga (Survivor Island) for our company trip on 8-9 April 2008. Pulau Tiga is also called Survivor Island because the first series of the Survivor reality show took place on this island.

I almost recovered from the back pain but it got worst after the company trip. The sea was very choppy when we were on the way to the island and as a result, I could hardly move and did not enjoy the trip. During the trip, my boss was telling me that I did not do enough exercise and as a result, I was having back pain. I really wanted to tell him the truth but I refrained myself.

The recovery was slow and on 26 May 2006, I finally went to see the bone specialist Dr. S Paramaswaran at Sabah Medical Centre on recommendation from a colleague from my company sister’s company. I had to take half day leave because my appointment was at 11a.m. but the doctor did not arrive until 11.30a.m. and I was his first patient for the day.

I told the doctor was had happened to me and he was very patient in hearing me out. We asked each other lots of questions. He recommended me to take calcium tablets for the rest of my life because my bones have become brittle after taking steroid for my asthma.

Tailor Made Pants

I woke up at 6.15a.m. today. I dropped by Maybank before arriving work at 7.30a.m. Yesterday my insurance agent was chasing me for my annual premium. He had paid on my behalf first using his own cheque. I need to pay him back.

Boss is busy with his personal matters from today onwards until next Saturday but he did drop by the office to ask me to do something urgent. I was glad I managed to finish it before I knocked off at 1p.m.

I drove to the city and parked the car near Milimewa Supermarket eventhough I was going to go to Wisma Merdeka to have lunch and then to Segama Complex to buy materials for the tailor to sew my work pants. I do not like to park in Segama Complex because usually there is traffic congestion on Saturday afternoon with people fancying double parking.

I walked over to Wisma Merdeka and took the elevator up to 2nd Floor. The coffee shop is at the entrance of the 2nd Floor elevator in Phase 1. This shop is famous for ‘har mee’ (prawn noodles). I ordered a bowl of ‘har meehoon’ and was happy to eat the noodles again after a long time. The soup was very concentrated and with the sambal belacan (prawn paste) adding to the taste, I enjoyed the whole bowl thoroughly. It cost RM5.

I dropped by at Watson’s and Guardian Pharmacy but did not buy anything from both shops. Then I walked over to Wah Yoon Trading Sdn. Bhd. to buy the four pieces of materials for my pants. This time the owner served me so I was able to ask for some discounts.

I went to my usual tailor recommended by one of the workers from Wah Yoon Trading Sdn. Bhd. when I first bought the materials from the shop. Lovely Fashion Tailor is located on No. 6, 1st Floor, Block J, Segama Complex.

The tailor was surprised to see me because I have not asked her to sew any pants for more than one and half years. She had to measure my body once again because she said she cannot use the measurements from previous occasions since I have lost so much weight. She said even the pants I was wearing did not look good on me because it was too big for me. Haha I told her that she was the one who sewed it for me. She said my weight loss is simply too drastic.

The weather was very hot this afternoon so I decided not to go shopping eventhough I was already in the city. When I was walking back from Segama Complex to the carpark, I noticed that indeed there was a major traffic congestion in Segama Complex and was glad I did not park the car there.

When I arrived home, mum and James had already arrived back home from Sandakan. After travelling for about five and a half hours on the road, mum still had the energy to cook a storm for tonight’s dinner. I really admired her for the amount of energy she has. She cooked prawn omelette, stir fry lettuce with pork, steamed chicken with mushrooms, chinese pork sausages and fried beancurd; and steamed fish.

I however had a two and half hours sleep before dinnertime.

Searching for Something That Does Not Exist

I woke up at 6.10a.m. today and arrived work at 7.12a.m. I had two minor deadlines to meet so I wanted to be early to get them over and done with so that I can proceed to other matters.

Since yesterday the boss had been having problems with his mobile phone. Apparently he had dropped the thing into water and it is malfunctioned after that. So he told the office boy to take it to the shop where he bought the phone from for repair.

The boss gave me a mobile phone to use at work since two years ago. He also told me I could bring it home but since I have my own mobile phone, I preferred to leave the office mobile phone in the office when I go home. Other colleagues are also allowed to use this mobile phone to make work related mobile phone calls.

With the boss’s mobile phone malfunctioning, he has to use my office mobile phone. So it was a day of inconvenience for me to switch between SIM cards using my own mobile phone.

Today the office boy is on leave to attend to his own private matters. Everybody was busy doing their own work. After 5p.m. the boss received a phone call from the quantity surveyor for one of the projects we are working on as a team requesting for some tender drawings to be issued to them by Monday so that tenderers can go to their office to collect the drawings.

My boss, colleagues and I could not find the tracing paper for those drawings anywhere and we were searching for them high and low. The boss even called the office boy and asked him where he put them. But upon checking the record, I found out that the drawings are not even in tracing yet. We had wasted so much time in hunting for something that does not exist. Even those who were involved in the project could not remember that they have not printed the drawings on tracing paper yet. But at least the boss can cool down. He was so fussed with the office boy until he could eat anyone up at that time.

At the end, all my colleagues and I could do was to laugh at the whole episode to keep our sanity intact.

Have been working so hard these few days until I feel so tired and sleepy right now. Going to have a very early night tonight. I certainly need some deep sleep to recover and be refreshed once again.

Today’s Happenings

This morning as I was about to get up at 6a.m., there was a blackout. I prayed and told God that when I woke up, I hope the current would be back on so that I can have my hot shower. Since I am still coughing, I did not want to take a cold one. True enough, as I was about to wake up, the current came back on. Thank you Lord!

With so much of water down my system yesterday I thought I would not have no problem in passing motion but quite the opposite happened. I was so surprised. I felt so uneasy the whole day.

The salary was given out today since the boss was not free to sign the cheques yesterday. Normally I only see most of my colleagues who are based at the project sites on pay day. Today one of them told me I have lost weight. I should be happy and I am. I have been trying to eat a lot to gain back the weight but I am still 41.5kg. Tonight my sis-in-law’s mother also said I am too thin.

After the salary was given out, most of my colleagues in the office were not happy. Recently during a drafting department meeting, the boss had told them to help him to meet the drafting deadline and promised that bonus would be given out soon but he never said it would be at the end of March 2008. But most of them expected to receive it today. They started to write out a petition to demand for their much deserved and promised bonus. But no one dared to hand it in to the boss. So morale is a bit low in the office. They even planned to go on strike! Eventhough I know the bosses’s good intention in giving out only at the end of May 2008, I do not want to burst the bubbles by telling them the truth.

I had an extremely busy day and was glad to come home. I had to force myself to sit on the throne because I know that all of us need to pass motion at least once a day for the sake of our health. I was glad that I finally passed motion before I had my shower.

(I digress – the worst time for me for not passing motion was when I was visiting my aunty in Tg. Malim. From visiting them, I ended up working for uncle-in-law for two years. His house uses a squat instead of flush toilet. For the first three weeks of staying with them, I could not pass any motion. The thing would not come out at all. Can you imagine the amount of toxic in my body?! But thank God I did not feel uneasy though.

Thank God for cousin Christopher Chong for having to move to Kuala Lumpur for a few months to attend to his law training to sit for the bar after I went there. Upon entering his brother’s condominium, I went straight into the common flush toilet. The thing just came out naturally. What a big relief that was for me. I celebrated that night itself but forgot how I celebrated.

From then onwards, I did not have any problems in passing motion in the squat toilet in my uncle-in-law’s house anymore).

Yesterday’s Happenings

When I was going to put on a long sleeve shirt for work yesterday morning, I had a premonition telling me not to wear long sleeve. So I hung up the long sleeve shirt and put on a short sleeve blouse.

Yesterday I also started to cough quite seriously. This is probably because when I was leaving work to go home the day before, there was a slight drizzle and I was too lazy to open the umbrella eventhough I had one with me since the walking distance is so short.

At about 4p.m., there was a blackout. I was really glad I did not wear the long sleeve shirt and heed the warning given to me. I also drank quite a lot of water, nearly 2 litres.

We had probably been working too hard and so we needed a break. I quickly tied up some loose ends and left work at 4.30p.m. After shower, I surfed the internet for about half an hour before having an hour nap.

After dinner at my sis-in-law’s, I changed and drove to the petrol station to fill up petrol for the car. Then I dropped by Tong Hing’s Supermarket at Damai Plaza to buy two packets of US turkey ham for my daily sandwiches for breakfast.

Attended the Canaanland Celebration Committee Meeting at Kyrugma House from 8-10.10p.m. Sharon Lai brought some snacks and cakes there but I resisted since I am coughing. I only drank two cups of water.

Most Memorable April Fool’s Days

My most memorable April Fool’s Days happened when I was a Form One and Two student at Sung Siew Secondary School, Sandakan. Both Form One and Two classes were in the afternoon.

Mrs Sylvia Alsisto – Form One
We had a disciplinary teacher called Mrs. Sylvia Alsisto. She is a Filipino but she has been in Malaysia for a long time. When I was in Form One she taught my class English and History while in Form Two English only.

She actually taught us to sing the National Anthem ‘Negaraku’ (my country) during our History lesson and each of us was assessed on it if I remember correctly. In fact I think she assessed us on everything, from reading out loud a paragraph, to every exercise we were given to do, to answering a question, etc.

At the beginning of the year when she gave us a map of Malaysia to draw for our History lesson, most of us only passed up shoddy work because we did not want to waste our colour pencils. When she returned our work after marking them, this was what she told us ‘Warna cincai, markah pun cincai’ (shoddy colouring, shoddy mark!). From that time onwards, we made sure that our blue colour pencil remained the shortest because we needed to use it a lot to colour the sea on the map.

During April Fool’s Day that year, I forgot whose smart aleck’s idea was that to sing the National Anthem instead of our usual good afternoon (in Malay) greeting. Anyway, when she entered the class, we started singing but there was no emotional response from her. She was so cool and the whole thing backfired on us. We automatically reverted back to our good afternoon greeting without any prompting. She did not say anything about the whole episode during that class at all.

Seniors told us that she liked to set her own subjective questions for exams. All we had to do was to memorise the whole book inside out. Yeah, that was some kind of revelation! Anyway, I did not know why I did not follow that great tip. I studied and memorised answers from past years Government exam papers and there were all objective questions.

I was so elated when the History exam paper was passed to me. I spotted nearly every question. I felt like I was winning the lottery. After she had marked our exam papers, when she was passing back the result to us, she looked so angry when she passed it back to me because I obtained 94%. I think nobody had ever obtained such a high mark in her class before. She must be cussing herself for being lazy once for not setting her own questions.

Trainee teacher - Form One
We had a trainee teacher from the Teacher’s College teaching us in Form One during that April Fool’s Day. She was a short Malay lady and a couple of boys decided to put the duster on top of the blackboard. When she finished writing on the whole blackboard, she could not proceed with the class and she did not ask any of us to assist her. Poor lady! She let us did whatever we wanted for the remaining of the class.

Science Teacher – Form One
He is descended from royalty since his name has a Tengku in it. Whenever we cannot answer his question, he would tell us to stand up on our chair and then our table. On April Fool’s Day another smart aleck told us to stand on our chair to greet him when he entered class. He had a smirk on his face upon realising our prank. One of those occasions that we can actually see his teeth!

Form Teacher – Form One
I forgot what her name was and I also forgot what prank we played on her.


Spinxie's Form One Class

Form Teacher – Form Two
A day before April Fool’s Day we decided to nominate a person for our prank. The person had to go to Encik Zamri’s staff quarters to find him and tell him that the Principal wanted to see him pronto! The person had to make sure he went there early and the best time would be when he was having a shower before our afternoon class session started. What evil minds we had!

On the day itself, this was carried out and Encik Zamri forgot it was April Fool’s Day. We had never seen him ran so fast before. Haha! And the thing was that he was not angry with us when he came to teach us Mathematics that day. He just laughed. That's why our class liked him so much.


Spinxie's Form Two Class

Both of these classes were top class in the respective form out of six classes in each form. And yet we can be so naughty!

April Fool’s Day 2008

Did any of you get fooled by someone today?

Nothing unusual usually happen at work on this day because everyone is so busy with their work.

Most people have OT claims for March 2008 so I took a longer time to do the payroll today. The boss was out in a meeting this afternoon so he will only sign the payroll tomorrow.

Bonuses accrued for Year End September 2007 will be given out at the end of May 2008 so that those who celebrate Harvest Festival will have extra money to use.

Today one of my ex-colleagues who resigned at end of May 2007 upon reaching retirement age and took out a lump sum of more than RM100K from the Employees Provident Fund came back to work. He found that life is boring without doing anything much eventhough at first he wanted to open a post office. He had since given up on that pursuit but he still operates a shop selling mobile phones and accessories. It is good to have him back.